


Human

by SwoodMaxProductions



Series: Hyrule Warriors 2 AU [12]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Childhood Friends, Exhaustion, Fainting, Friendship, Gen, Gerudo Culture, Good Ganondorf, Hurt/Comfort, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Unconsciousness, Vulnerability, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwoodMaxProductions/pseuds/SwoodMaxProductions
Summary: Bthb: Confined to Bed RestAn alliance formed in Wars’ Hyrule gives the Links a window into the humanity of Ganondorf Dragmire...
Relationships: Nabooru & Ganondorf
Series: Hyrule Warriors 2 AU [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750702
Comments: 7
Kudos: 71





	Human

**Author's Note:**

> This uses the Ganondorf from my TP resurrection AU and the Nabooru from my SSBU AU, just FYI. ENJOY!!

The Links arrived on the battlefield to find the last person they expected to see there.

Ganondorf stood alone against a horde of monsters, surrounded by what could only be described as a vast, mountainous terrain of monster corpses and the overpowering smells of blood and ozone.

He was wounded. His breath came in pained, wheezing gasps, arrows in his sides, a spear pinning his cape to his back, piercing enough through his armor to cause him great pain. His own blood matted his beard and his hair, which was almost entirely jarred loose from his crown in a ragged crimson cascade.

But he still stood, sword in one hand, a fistful of dark fire surrounding the spear he’d pulled from his own flesh in the other, challenging the dwindling horde with unbroken ferocity. The monsters noticeably hesitated, but made one final charge, met head-on with a blast of magic that left the very earth charred and smoking. Even so grievously wounded, Ganondorf refused to relent, holding the line between the tiny cliff village and the monsters— a line consisting of only one man.

The Links descended into the canyon as one, Wild and Wind leading the charge with their paraglider and Deku Leaf. They realized now that this alliance was no mere charade to get Hyrule to lower its guard. The king of the Gerudo had paid for the lives of not only Gerudo, but Hylian and Goron soldiers with his blood. In a single day he had done more for Hyrule than any of those “warning” Princess Zelda.

The Links swept over the meager number of monsters that remained like a tsunami, and finally, the last of the monsters fell. 

And so did Ganondorf.

The Links turned back just in time to see him try to keep standing, try to gather his focus— and fail. The colossus of a man crumbled before their eyes like a tower being swallowed by a sinkhole, his head slamming against the ground and splaying a bloodied halo of loose hair out around his head.

He didn’t get back up.

He was sickeningly still, and they might have assumed he was dead, were he not  _ Ganondorf. _ Making a cautious approach, they could tell that he was still alive, wheezy rasps of breath hitching in his throat. He was only unconscious.

But that carried an entirely new kind of horror for the Heroes of Courage.

This was Ganondorf Dragmire, Prince of Thieves, Demon Reborn, King of Evil. And he… he’d passed out. Living embodiments of evil didn’t…  _ pass out. _ The solemn realization rippled through their ragtag group as it occurred to them that they weren’t looking at a living embodiment of evil. They were looking at a man. They were looking at a single man up against the universe itself, broken and bloodied, lying limp and so, so  _ vulnerable  _ at their feet. Everyone had their limits. 

Even Ganondorf.

Hyrule was the first to kneel at his side, reaching tentatively out to begin healing his wounds. The others’ halfhearted efforts to stop him petered out quickly as Ganondorf gave no reaction, his eyes closed and his grizzled, weathered face oddly serene, like a statue, or a monument. A monument to the suffering of not only him, but his people. To the inherent injustice of fate...

Gathered in concerned awe around the fallen warrior-mage, the Links jumped at the sound of hoofbeats approaching them. 

Riding up to them was another member of their alliance: Nabooru. Not the Sage of Spirit, as Time had known, but the childhood friend of Ganondorf returning to help salvage the wreckage of the boy she had grown up with from the stranglehold of what she and they had learned was Demise’s curse.

“Links? Ganondorf?!”

“He’s alive, ma’am,” said Hyrule laconically, doing his best to focus on his healing magic.

“Oh thank Din— Let’s get him back to base…”

Dismounting, Nabooru gently scooped Ganondorf’s considerable, unconscious bulk into her arms and draped her wounded friend onto her horse.

“Silver Gauntlets…” Time explained to his awed counterparts.

“Very good! You get an A on your enchanted items quiz!” grinned Nabooru.

~~~

“You seem… awfully nonchalant about this…” said Twilight.

Nabooru smiled sadly. “This isn’t the first time,” she admitted.

“What?!”

They were gathered outside of Ganondorf’s chambers, letting the professional healers’ magic and the potions Nabooru had badgered him into drinking as soon as she could wake him in the slightest do their work assisting Ganondorf’s infamous healing factor as he slept.

“The… first time he’s gotten hurt like this, or…”

“It isn’t the first time he’s pushed himself way too far trying to fix everything and help everyone himself.”

Nabooru’s words were hauntingly familiar.

The same had often been said of all of them. 

“Once he almost died fighting an entire den of moldorms. He was fourteen…”

Nabooru shook her head and laughed.

“You know… you all remind me a lot of him, back before… the Curse started taking over… I think you remind him of those times, too…”

The Links were listening intently. They had never really heard about… the  _ real  _ Ganondorf. Not the beast, not the war machine of Demise, but the  _ man _ . The  _ boy. _

“I think that’s how the Curse took him,” she said quietly, “It exploited our suffering…”

Nabooru’s gaze was distant now. The grim silence was thankfully broken by Ganondorf, groggily limping out only to be stopped by Nabooru.

“Oh no you don’t! You should be in  _ bed _ right now!”

Ganondorf groaned, half in pain and half in frustration.

“But were—“

“The town is fine, Ganondorf. Go rest now. You’ve far beyond earned it.”

Nabooru reached up and laid a hand on a rare uninjured patch of Ganondorf’s shoulder. The towering sorcerer sighed wearily, shuffling back into his quarters with a wry smirk.

“Yes,  _ vaba _ …”

Nabooru snorted. 

“We grew up together,” she explained to the Links, “I lost my mother at a young age as well. We were both raised by  _ rova _ . He’s practically my brother.”

“...Really?”

“Absolutely! Oh, we had so much fun as kids…”

And that was how the Heroes of Courage spent the better part of the evening: talking with the very, very human people that fate would have be their enemies. Because sometimes, fate was wrong.


End file.
